The Things We Lost
by AnEquivalentExchange
Summary: "We lost more than a house that day." October 3rd oneshot.


The things we lost that day weren't just tangible items.

Thought we did lose those things too and I said goodbye to those as well during our one last sweep of the house.

Brother needed clothes to pack—he had taken a liking to dark ones within these past few months since it was hard to see the smudges of oil his automail left behind on dark cloth—and a few last items neither of us wanted to let go of just yet.

I didn't need anything however, except for a final farewell. It seemed I needed to push myself to go into that house, even after all that had happened in there, force myself to see it all one last time before I carelessly burned it to the ground. I felt it deserved my sentiment. It had housed me, it had kept my family safe and sound, setting it ablaze without a proper sound off didn't seem right.

Brother opened the front door and we both stopped for a moment at the threshold, which seemed so small now. The house was dark and I was over-sensitive of the fact of how empty it was without anyone live in it. It felt as if it had never been vacated before. No matter how familiar it all was to me, it hadn't felt like a real home in a long time. Without Mom there with us, the house might as well have been stripped bare of anything resembling a home.

With an almost imperceptible sigh, Edward took a step in, his boot landing heavily on the hardwood flooring of the hallway.

I touched everything that had once held meaning as we walked in, giving it one last goodbye. It was a numbing experience, and the fact that I could not actually feel those things with my hands made the entire thing even more surreal.

My fingers traced over the carvings in the doorframe, the names Al, Ed and Winry were all scratched into the wood, in order of height, from that one day back when Ed and Winry were still taller than I, when Mom had measured the three of us.

"Al, Come on," Ed mumble from the end of the hall, voice quiet and solemn as if we were some place sacred, a place where words shouldn't be spoken.

Creaking erupted from the floorboards as I followed Ed. We passed Dad's study without a word. The amount of information he had accumulated with the thick volumes crammed into his bookcases was invaluable. But neither of us was willing to relive that night. Seeing that study, seeing the dried blood on the floor, the remnants of chalk still draw in complex shapes on the floor, or the missing suit of armor in the corner would be too much for us to bare.

I certainly knew I would not go back in there, even for all the knowledge in the world. Brother said nothing, but I knew he was thinking the same thing.

* * *

Mom had been so adamant when we were younger, telling us to never go into our father's study. He would be mad if we messed it up or broke anything. She had relented later when we had found a passion for alchemy; I know now it was because we reminded her of Dad. But still, sometimes I find myself wondering now, if all of this would have happened had she put her foot down.

I could almost see Ed's dried blood splattered across the hall's floor from when I had carried him on that night. I told myself that must have been illusion, a trick of the light or a pattern in the wood.

Ed moved into our old bedroom, procuring whatever clothes he needed without a word. I lingered for a bit, hand moving over the made-up beds and the small figurines, our first attempts at alchemy, on top of the dresser. I left before Ed though, slipping as silently as a suit of armor could out the door. We both knew I didn't need the same things Ed did now.

It was mid-evening when Ed and I stood before our Resembool home. We had grown skilled at starting fires after our month of training on Yock Island, but I had never once thought our skill would come in handy when doing something like _this._

Winry, Granny and even Den had come. Ed and I had wanted to do this by ourselves; it was our burden to carry—not Winry's, not Granny's. A part of me was ashamed, embarrassed, about the whole thing. We had failed to bring Mom back and now we were burning the evidence and running. It was admission to how badly we had failed. But Winry and Granny insisted on being there, and as their list of reasons grew, it became harder and harder to say no.

The October sky was dim, blue and cloudless when Ed and I set fire to our home. Night was on the horizon but the flames burned bright before us. It was slow, agonizing to watch. The flames started out white, yellow and tiny, licking the edges where house met grass. But as the flames moved to other parts of the house and onto the surrounding grass and tree, the fire grew more quickly.

It was dusk by the time flames were visible through the windows. The glass cracked and shattered under the heat. Den jumped up, barking wildly at the inferno; Granny shushed her. The rest of us remained silent as Den whimpered.

By the time the stars had come out, the house was nearly imperceivable through the blaze. The large tree and swing had surrendered completely to the flames. Smoke poured out of all the broken windows and pushed out under the door, swirling into a mass that rose high above our heads and dissipated into the night sky. Thick, fat, dark clouds of smoke engulfed everything; Ed tried his best not to cough, hiding it with a quick grunt into his red coat sleeve.

I couldn't imagine how suffocating the heat must have been, standing this close to the fire. Brother had a sheen of sweat across his face, but his mind and gaze could not be deterred by the heat as he stared at our burning home.

Resembool had always been very warm, but the Autumn nights were always cold—yes, I could still remember that. But the fire's warmth was not a warm invitation away from the cold. It was burning, baking, smothering.

The flames still burned bright through all the smoke. I wonder if any of Resembool's other residents could see this, or what they thought about Ed and I, who had disappeared from the public eye over a year ago. What would they make of the Elrics now?

I heard Winry choke back a sob. She stood to Ed's left, her small hands bunched into tight, shaking fists at her sides. She didn't blink back her tears as they freely fell down her cheeks. She, like Brother, seemed to be entranced by the bright flames that licked the sides of the house and rose up from the windows and roof.

The things we lost that day, they weren't just unnecessary items. They weren't just the tangible furniture and books and toys. We lost our home. Our sense of security. We lost every momento from our childhood. All that was left was our memories of those things and times, which would fade and twist as life went on.

It made sense, burning down our home. It didn't mean I had to like it though. But it was the only reassurance we had left that we were going to get our bodies back. If we were going to do this, we needed no ties to our home or our past. We didn't need something holding us back, anchoring us to Resembool. Because, we both knew, if our home stood, there was always a reason to go back as soon as things got tough.

Neither of us would be strong enough to resist that.

Ed threw the last burning piece of kindle into the inferno with a sad sense of finality. "There's no turning back for us now," he whispered.

We lost more than a house that day. Sure, there were things in there we loved that we would never see again, lost to the inferno. But we also lost our _home_. We lost ourselves. And I wondered if, unlike our home, unlike all those tangible items now burning inside it, if we'd be able to have those things again.

* * *

**[A/N: Idk, I really didn't have a plan when I went to write this, I just wanted to do some sort of homage to Oct 3rd. This was inspired partially by The Things We Lost in the Fire by Bastille (it's like the perfect song for today okay).**

**It's my second Oct 3rd being in the FMA fandom and it still hasn't lost its meaning to me. Ed and Al gave up a lot that day, hoping to be able to gain something even bigger on their journey. They made a huge sacrifice and it wasn't just a house they lost that day. I just, UGH, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST IS SO AMAZING AND I'M SO EMOTIONAL ABOUT THE ELRIC BROTHERS ALL OF THE TIME.**

**And P.S. to those of you who read my other ongoing stories, I'm sorry I haven't updated in forever, but I _am_ working on them, slowly but surely!]**


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